It is so easy to find a smile when she is with Myrna - it has been ever since she was small. In her she hears the Gale she had met in the Alliance, the one she had spent that day in Islandres with. This comparison hurts, a hooked claw in her heart, but it doesn’t diminish the joy she gets from spending time with her daughter - or the joy that someone created in fire and darkness could be so filled with light.
She bumps her muzzle against her daughter’s cheek with affection as Myrna states how she’ll have to be extra helpful if the twins are stuck as horses. “You’re going to be such a good big sister.” And there is no doubt in her at all that this is the truth.
Her grin grows a little more at the next question and then a small laugh escapes her when Myrna tells her she doesn’t want to name them. “That’s okay, you don’t have to name them. We haven’t decided on names yet. Maybe one will match Firion and one will match Sickle.” As it always does when she talks about that missing daughter, Mazikeen’s smile turns sad. She fights against it, hating the idea of Myrna collecting memories of a haunted mother instead of a smiling one.
The absence of Sickle is a solid weight in her stomach which reminds her that as happy as she is there are still shadows that can’t be ignored. A missing daughter, the unknown fate of Gale.
If he is not dead, if there is a time when he returns, there will be two more ways for him to shatter her.
Mazikeen shakes away these thoughts, and the memory of Malik and Myrna bleeding on the ground, and then blatantly changes the subject. “Have you tried any new shifts lately?”
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Viszla